The world is experiencing a rise in the use of the internet in many aspects of communication and businesses. Unlike the ancient times when most of the things were manual, the advancement in technology has changed the way things are done. One such area where the internet seems to have had a major influence is on the way people perceive time. With the use of internet, everything has become very fast and almost instant. The distance between people is no longer an issue when communicating due to modern technology. People separated by thousands of miles away can exchange information including pictures and videos almost instantly thus eliminating the culture of waiting. While this is better for faster communication, the whole thing has changed the way people view the issue of time. Technology has created a sense of urgency and impatient amongst people, with a need to have things happen instantly irrespective of the circumstances that exist.
The Internet exposes people to increased amount of information which comes instantly and can be shared globally within just seconds. As people use technology and access large amount of information, people start to feel that they have limited time for everything. Individuals spend large part of their day on the social media platforms sharing information and communication with friends ( Greenfield, 2019). The result of this is that people start to feel that they have limited time, which then leads to pressure on everything they do. Internet has created a sense of urgency amongst people as everything is needed to happen instantly without having to wait. An example of this is in the reply for a text message. While it is not clear what constitutes a late reply for text messages, the pressure for time that the internet has put on people makes it a necessity to reply text messages almost instantly regardless of whether an individual was busy or held up somewhere as can be seen by apologies seen.
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Social media is another area that the internet has changed the way people perceive time and the development of a sense of urgency. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter has increased the speed at which people share information. The artificially induced speed of sharing information has encouraged people to share fast and made the information to reach a wide range of areas of the world within a short time. The faster people receive large amount of information, the more pressure for time it creates on them. With large amount of information at disposal, one fails to realize the reality of time and gets under pressure to adapt to the speed of technology without coming to the fact that human beings cannot function at the same speed as that of computers ( How Technology Changes Our Perception of Time , 2019). The outcome is increased anxiety and pressure to fit into the speedy technology era.
Before the technological era, human perception of time was based on their speed, reflexes, and emotions. However, this has since changed, and people have been under pressure to function with the speed of the computer which is far much beyond to the human rhythm. Because of the pressure for time, people try to process data very fast, and this affects the quality of work. The human brain has been set at a state of emergency where it requires to process things within a short period without even a deep understanding of the whole thing. With this pressure for time and sense of urgency, people are so quick to browse information from the internet and even faster to share them without having to through them. This pressure has led to spread of unauthenticated information without any verification, and which reaches a large number of people within a few seconds.
Technology has made people impatient for everything that takes more than seconds to get a reply. While it has led to speedy faster communication, it is pushing people towards a time zone that is based on immediate replies. Without focusing on the future impacts of the current behaviors, people want things to happen instantly and immediately. An example is on the mail replies. The question that arises is what constitutes a late reply for a mail. People expect immediate replies for mails, and anything past two hours is considered late. People seem to focus on the present without any insight into the next few days or weeks. Even with the difference in the time zones, internet has eliminated this barrier and people seem to have developed a perception that the world lies in the same time zone. This can be seen by the mails that people send to friends and colleagues and expect instant feedback without considering the existence of time difference. People are under pressure to fit into the speed of the internet and time seems to be limited in everything.
In conclusion, technology has created a sense of urgency and impatience amongst people by setting the brain into a state of emergency. People want everything to happen instantly at the speed of the internet without considering the fact that internet is faster than human rhythms. With the urge to put things in a state of emergency, people are living under pressure for time and seems impatient with anything that goes past a few seconds. This pressure creates anxiety and nervousness and makes people do things without any deep understanding because the brain has been forced to function at a tech speed.
References
How Technology Changes Our Perception of Time - Thrive Global. (2019). Retrieved 25 September 2019, from https://thriveglobal.com/stories/how-technology-changes-our-perception-of-time/
Greenfield, R. (2019). A Different Kind of Digital Generation Gap. Retrieved 25 September 2019, from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/different-kind-digital-generation-gap/329018/
